Young, Hopeless, Rich and Famous

When they weren't at band practice or at work during their teens, Good Charlotte could often be found at the St. Charles Town Center Mall, where they spent thousands of hours -- "probably like a year if we added it all up," figures Benji. As soon as we enter the mall this afternoon, Joel heads for a watch shop, where he does something rare for a member of Good Charlotte: He spends money on himself, buying a $500 Fendi watch. As if ashamed by Joel's sudden splurge, Benji makes a peace offering to the God of Good Manners, buying a $100 watch for his mom.

This kind of spending is new for the Madden twins. When Benji and Joel were kids, their dad (whose surname the twins ditched in favor of their mother's maiden name) bounced around from job to job, mostly as a butcher and a house painter, struggling to support the twins, their older brother Josh and younger sister Sarah. His bad temper and dissatisfaction were exacerbated by his drinking, and he often took his frustration out on his family, particularly the boys' sweet-tempered, devoutly Christian mother. "If he came home and his shoes weren't in the right place," Joel says, "he would just start going off. One time I saw him rip a phone, like, in one motion, rip the phone off the wall and throw it at my mom -- like he was pitching a baseball."

Then came Christmas Eve 1995. "My parents got into a big fight," Joel says. "Then we heard my dad getting stuff together downstairs and we didn't know what he was doing, and we heard him slam the door. I was like, 'He's probably just going for the night.' We got up the next day and it was Christmas, and we didn't really do anything except go with my mom to my aunt's house. And then we came back and my dad was gone."

Joel and Benji were sixteen then, and it was the last time they saw their dad. Only Benji has spoken with him since. "I tried to call him and say, 'Hey, now that I'm nineteen, we can be friends, even though we had all these problems in the past,' " Benji says. "I was willing to put it all aside. And basically he was like, 'I'm trying to start a new life. I'm trying to forget about you guys.' The last time I ever talked to him was on the phone that day."

[Excerpt From Issue 921 — May 1, 2003]